TIME MANAGEMENT

Today I'm thinking about time management.  Time management, to-do lists, and cat food.  Trust me, it's all related.

When I tell folks that I'm an artist and I work at home, I usually get some sort of response like "It must be nice to sleep in and work in your pyjamas everyday."  My response is to smile and say something banal and agreeable, while inside I'm laughing hysterically at the absurdity.

As if!  This sort of observation is like telling a stay-at-home mom she does nothing all day . . . and most likely to end the same way: a frying pan to the head. 

And you leave my sock monkey slippers out of this!

When I was working the cushy, salaried job, I was able to telecommute from home if needed.  The problem with working from home is there are sooooo many distractions.  Pets demand attention.  Laundry needs to be done.  As a homeowner and landlord something always needs to be fixed.  Neighbors or friends stop by because your car was in the drive and they want to chat or go to lunch for a few hours.  It's much more difficult to stay focused and on task when you work from home; you are, effectively, trying to do one job (the paying one) while geographically located in the middle of at least one other job (your home and life, and, in my case as a landlord, the other paying job).

Every day has to be as structured as any other 9 - 5.  Yeah, it's nice to actually sit down and eat breakfast rather than inhale a bagel while I'm rushing to get on the road, but I still have to put in a full day's work to make sure the bills get paid.  Or, to explain another way: I left my job as a scientist and became an artist, a janitor, an IT department, an R&D team, a marketing group, a shipping department, an inventory manager, and an accountant.  (Apparently I was bored at my old job.)  I have to be all these things, and that doesn't leave time for sleeping in until noon.  Or even 9am!

Managing my time is critical.  But it needs to be flexible as well, because creativity sometimes has its own idea of what I'll be working on.  I start with blocks of time every day for both my paying jobs (the studio and the house) and add or subtract based on the current day's to-do list or deadline.  This way I've retained time for "emergencies" as they crop up, meetings with other artists or groups, etc.  Then I start filling in with the requirements.  1 hr required sketching or working on a fine art picture (more than that and I start rushing the work); 1-2 hrs required working on crafted goods; block time on Fridays for accounting and payroll; block time on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays for shipping; etc.  You get the idea.

Most days I work 12 hrs.  My life has devolved into a series of daily page-long to-do lists: when to update the blog, when to spend 2 hrs learning a new software program, when to spend time on a new sketch, when to get ready for the part time job, when to go grocery shopping.  Looking at today's list, it looks like I'm slated to pick up cat food at 9pm--because The Boys are completely out of food, which I noted this morning after they were fed, and which prompted this whole post. 

Yep.  Time management, to-do lists, and cat food: required and necessary for working from home.

In my slippers.